Post-op update
Yesterday I took the Darnall hospital shuttle down to BAMC for my follow up appointment with my doctor. It's a 2 1/2 hour ride in which we go through Austin and down on to San Antonio. Austin looks pretty cool; we still haven't found the time to go check it out, but maybe one of these weekends we will.
Anywho, my appointment was at 1130; to catch the shuttle you have to be at the hospital by 0530, that's when the shuttle leaves. So I got up at 0300 to shower, put my face on, fix my hair; yeah I know, it takes me an hour to get myself together, but oh well... So we leave the house at 0430, get to the hospital at 0500, so I make it. I usually bring my mp3 player and a book or a crossword with me to pass the time as I wait for my appointments. The hospital is huge and they adding on to it as I type this: a huge parking garage and another wing are being added. The parking garage is really needed, as the parking there is horrible. I guess that's the way it is with most hospitals.
So I hang around the waiting room reading my book (The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country by Steve Hendricks). As usual, there are pregnant women all over. One female soldier who was there (she wasn't pregnant as far as I could tell) did inquire what was I reading so I showed her. I had recently just started reading it, so I was just starting to get really into it. I'll talk about the book more in another post; it's one of those books that gets you sooo mad! I finally get to see my doctor, who does another exam on me (eww, since I'm still bleeding, I think from the surgery, but he said it was from my period). I started my period last week, so I was expecting it to happen sooner or later. But it's been going on for a week now, so shouldn't it be from the surgery? No, he said, because it looked like menstrual blood to him. Okay, whatever you say, doc. But from the last surgery I had earlier this year, I bled for 3 1/2 weeks! But anyway, he said that everything looked good and I was progressing along just fine. He said that my case was rather unusual because it turned out to be way more complicated than what they were thinking it would be. He said that the growth on my left ovary and uterine wall were separate; the growth on the wall was so huge, it was causing my uterus to be tilted in such a way, that it would make my pelvic exams uncomfortable (plus having the doctors always exclaim, "your uterus is tilted to the side!") Since they didn't want to make a large incision on my belly, they just cut the tumor in pieces, or strips and pulled it out through my belly button. They cleaned up a lot of the leftover scar tissue from my appendectomy I had when I was five, and in addition to removing the right ovary, they removed some smaller cysts from the left one as well. So I still have my uterus and left ovary, which means I'll still have periods, ugh. As for the growth on the wall, the doc said that there was really no way to tell just how long it had been there. It could have been there for years, just slowly growing. It wasn't cancerous or anything, thank goodness. But in any event, he said, that if anything comes back or if I would like to have a fertility treatment done (to see if I can conceive), he would be happy to do it for me. I told him I wasn't interested in the fertility thing but I would keep him in mind if anything came back on my ovary.
After the appointment I grabbed some lunch at the hospital Burger King and waited for the shuttle to return at 1615. I got back around 1930; the SO was there to pick me up, so we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the house. My soreness is slowly going away, but I'm still way too sore to run or jog right now. And I'm still bleeding, grr. I have about two more weeks until my trip back up to Washington to work on the Colville NF. Now I have to start prepping for that. I'm excited!
Anywho, my appointment was at 1130; to catch the shuttle you have to be at the hospital by 0530, that's when the shuttle leaves. So I got up at 0300 to shower, put my face on, fix my hair; yeah I know, it takes me an hour to get myself together, but oh well... So we leave the house at 0430, get to the hospital at 0500, so I make it. I usually bring my mp3 player and a book or a crossword with me to pass the time as I wait for my appointments. The hospital is huge and they adding on to it as I type this: a huge parking garage and another wing are being added. The parking garage is really needed, as the parking there is horrible. I guess that's the way it is with most hospitals.
So I hang around the waiting room reading my book (The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country by Steve Hendricks). As usual, there are pregnant women all over. One female soldier who was there (she wasn't pregnant as far as I could tell) did inquire what was I reading so I showed her. I had recently just started reading it, so I was just starting to get really into it. I'll talk about the book more in another post; it's one of those books that gets you sooo mad! I finally get to see my doctor, who does another exam on me (eww, since I'm still bleeding, I think from the surgery, but he said it was from my period). I started my period last week, so I was expecting it to happen sooner or later. But it's been going on for a week now, so shouldn't it be from the surgery? No, he said, because it looked like menstrual blood to him. Okay, whatever you say, doc. But from the last surgery I had earlier this year, I bled for 3 1/2 weeks! But anyway, he said that everything looked good and I was progressing along just fine. He said that my case was rather unusual because it turned out to be way more complicated than what they were thinking it would be. He said that the growth on my left ovary and uterine wall were separate; the growth on the wall was so huge, it was causing my uterus to be tilted in such a way, that it would make my pelvic exams uncomfortable (plus having the doctors always exclaim, "your uterus is tilted to the side!") Since they didn't want to make a large incision on my belly, they just cut the tumor in pieces, or strips and pulled it out through my belly button. They cleaned up a lot of the leftover scar tissue from my appendectomy I had when I was five, and in addition to removing the right ovary, they removed some smaller cysts from the left one as well. So I still have my uterus and left ovary, which means I'll still have periods, ugh. As for the growth on the wall, the doc said that there was really no way to tell just how long it had been there. It could have been there for years, just slowly growing. It wasn't cancerous or anything, thank goodness. But in any event, he said, that if anything comes back or if I would like to have a fertility treatment done (to see if I can conceive), he would be happy to do it for me. I told him I wasn't interested in the fertility thing but I would keep him in mind if anything came back on my ovary.
After the appointment I grabbed some lunch at the hospital Burger King and waited for the shuttle to return at 1615. I got back around 1930; the SO was there to pick me up, so we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the house. My soreness is slowly going away, but I'm still way too sore to run or jog right now. And I'm still bleeding, grr. I have about two more weeks until my trip back up to Washington to work on the Colville NF. Now I have to start prepping for that. I'm excited!